Docker EE Federation

While our minds have already shifted ahead to Dockercon Europe, there was one announcement in particular from Dockercon2018 that everyone should take notice. Docker Enterprise Edition (EE) will soon allow organizations to federate applications across not only other deployments of itself, but accompanying Kubernetes cloud-hosted solutions like AWS Elastic Container Service for Kubernetes (EKS), Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), and Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). This pivotal business decision for Docker Inc. demonstrates that they are listening to their customers and should allow them to continue to be the go-to container platform for enterprises across the globe.

The adoption last Fall of Kubernetes in Docker EE as a choice of orchestration was met with great acclaim. Kubernetes has certainly been chosen as the market leader by sign of popularity and hype (it is, after all, a powerful and rock-solid platform), while Swarm in its opinionated simplicity allows users to not only get up and running fast, but to not have to bare the burden of Kubernetes administration overhead for those not yet prepared to take on such a task. Swarm is and will continue to be a competitive orchestrator that serves a large portion of market need, but Kubernetes is gaining faster emergence. With Docker’s announcement to support outside platforms within their own, they are showing understanding of the market demand and while still supporting their current customer base. Docker EE will be the only container platform that allows an organization to easily run workloads outside of its own environment. Docker shows with this move they understand the demand for multi-cloud support, the existence of diverse and disparate platforms within the same organization, and the adoption that can come of being the one that ties those pieces together.

A single dashboard for multiple clusters allowing application stack migration within a few clicks is not something that should technically be taken lightly. Sure, certainly a well organized DevOps team with the right skill set can automate this away without too much fuss, but most political climates within enterprise IT environments would never allow for such a thing, much less the ability to support it. An enterprise platform is not only there for support, but to make things easier. As long as Docker continues to listen to the market while making the hard easier to consume, they will continue to prosper in this currently ballooning space.